“What do you want to do post-grad?” That’s a question you hear A LOT in college. Freshman year, my answer was certain and firm: “I want to be on the marketing team for some big Atlanta company.” And that WAS what I wanted to do! Delta, the Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Coca-Cola – so many options here. But through the American Marketing Association at UGA, I was introduced to a different world of marketing, the agency side.
I knew marketing firms were a thing but never really understood the terms “agency-side” vs. “client-side”.
Almost every week, we have a guest speaker for AMA and I make it a mission to go to every single meeting. These two similar, yet completely different, worlds are a common topic of speeches.
Simply put, client-side is being on the marketing team for a single, specific company (what freshman me wanted to do). Agency-side is being at a marketing firm (or freelancing) that does marketing for multiple different businesses. And the more I learned about agency-side, the more it spoke to me.
My brain tends to thrive on organized chaos. My life may look like a mess to those on the outside but I feel like I have my solid routine down to a science. I love to learn new things and explore new avenues and agency marketing allows me to actually be hands-on in a variety of things.
Just in this last year, doing freelance marketing for different businesses, my knowledge has grown exponentially. I would definitely attribute my biggest learning curve to web-building platforms. When you go into a company that wants their website re-imagined, it makes sense to keep it within the same platform rather than also throwing a curveball at them. Websites may be on Wix or WordPress or Shopify and while the overarching theme is the same, the programs themselves differ significantly. If you were to ask me what show I’m watching at the moment, I wouldn’t have an answer for you. Running on my TV in the background is always some sort of tips & tricks or tutorial video.
Knowledge is power! And honestly, that’s what helps me sleep at night.
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